Licensing of e-bike riders

[markemark]

Ideally I wish cyclists would behave better. But in terms of deaths, serious injuries, financial cost (choose your flavour), the damage by cars outweighs the damage by cyclists by a factor of thousands. Spend all energy, cost and time on reducing the 40,000 rather than the 10.

 

[AlBaker]

40,000 by cars and how much new action is being taken to tackle that?

If we had a lot more cops, a lot more action would be taken.

 

[markemark]

If we had a lot more cops, a lot more action would be taken.

But you want the less than ideal number we have now to transfer some of their time from cars onto cyclists? If enough time is spent to reduce the number of deaths by cyclists by, 5 a year, what do you think the increase in car deaths would be with less time being spent on it? It will be far more than 5. This will kill more people.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

What is the profile of the riders suffering crashes?

I would hope that any steps to reduce number of accidents would be based on looking at the victims and causes and addressing those rather than could happen with knee-jerk reactions to "regulate".

Some years back cycling in Netherlands I met and by chance rode similar route to a dutch couple who organised group rides for retirees in the Netherlands (we just by chance ended-up at the same campsites several nights in a row and spent time drinking and chatting). They were finding difficulties with older generation getting on e-bikes without adequate/recent experience ie people who had given-up cycling some time ago but e-bikes suddenly enabled them to ride again. The problems they were finding were riders unable to properly control the bikes not through hooligan behaviour but just heavy bike, age related slower reactions and not as much familiarity and they would have accidents like cyclist approaches traffic lights, brakes too late and rides through a red (cycle) traffic light into moving traffic.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Apologies if already written, but it's also worth pointing out that at least some US states have a higher legal motor assist speed for ebikes than the UK, ~20mph vs 15.5mph iirc.

Like with motor vehicles, in a collision, more speed means worse injuries. Especially with increased mass.

But for example me and my GT ebike weigh ~112Kg total, that's a whole lot less than say a 2000Kg car.

 

[markemark]

Apologies if already written, but it's also worth pointing out that at least some US states have a higher legal motor assist speed for ebikes than the UK, ~20mph vs 15.5mph iirc.

Like with motor vehicles, in a collision, more speed means worse injuries. Especially with increased mass.

But for example me and my GT ebike weigh ~112Kg total, that's a whole lot less than say a 2000Kg car.

It's momentum that counts. 20 times heavier going 3 times the speed is 60 times the momentum. Add to that the car is 4 times the width making the danger zone much larger.

 

[Gwylan]

It's momentum that counts. 20 times heavier going 3 times the speed is 60 times the momentum. Add to that the car is 4 times the width making the danger zone much larger.

Sorry, I think the correct answer is x9 at 3 times the speed for the same weight
For x20 on the weight then the answer is x90
Momentum is 1/2MV².

If you take the surface area into account then things are more complicated
You have to factor in the probability factor.
You have to be a much better shot to hit somebody properly with a bike than with a car.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Momentum is 1/2MV².

Nope, that is kinetic energy. Momentum is mv.

 

[Alex321]

America is a big country, so 40,000 may seem a lot but spread across each state, it's probably about the same as the UK. There are enough e-bike crashes, and riders riding dangerously in public places, to warrant action.

The US has approximately 5 times the population of the UK. And the UK had 1,602 fatalities on the roads last year. So yes, 40K IS a lot, it would be about 8K if it was the same per capita.

 

[markemark]

The US has approximately 5 times the population of the UK. And the UK had 1,602 fatalities on the roads last year. So yes, 40K IS a lot, it would be about 8K if it was the same per capita.

But enough of those 40,00 deaths, the real problem is the 1 or 2 e-bike crashes a day that hardly ever kill anybody. That’s what we should be addressing.